AIBU that VAT on school fees makes no economical sense?

[fuckwitery]

Trying to research what it costs the state to put a child through school each year. Figures I've found show between £6 - £8k. We pay £13k per DC per year. That's prep, so will be more for senior school. So at the mo introducing VAT on these fees would add £2,600 to the state coffers. £4k for senior school.

We, and lots of others who just about manage to pay for private schooling, will be forced to take their children out. Therefore it's a NET loss for the state?

Or am I missing something.

I don't know enough about university fees to suggest whether VAT is appropriate or not but arguably higher earners already subsidise this due to the means testing of loans and the amount of people that will never earn enough to pay back their student loans.

It's a bit of a leap from wanting VAT on school fees to being a Communist!

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer (sorry, don't know how to bold!)

No, I really don't see it that way. It is a tax on schooling and that is frankly shameful. Many kids, not all, are privately educated through lack of alternatives as opposed to choice. As someone up-thread mentioned, how about taxing university fees? After all, a large proportion of students come from middle class families and they decided to get further education. Madness

if I have to pay tax for my 14 year old sanitary towels why the heck wouldn't you pay it for your choice to privately educate? [sic]

Because your DD's sanitary towel does not have any potential for greater social good. It will never morph into a doctor, surgeon, teacher or any other tax payer.

Also, you pay once for a sanitary towel. Those paying for education are paying twice - once through their taxes and again directly to the school.

peppatax - I think it's only the loan for maintenance that is means tested. I meant the fees themselves.

Thank you jojo

As i said i have no idea whether its a good idea just curious as to why its a bad idea...if that makes sense

I think the thing i stuggle with is the bit where you said that sometimes its down to a lack of alternatives

What makes the difference there because again your idea of no decent choice might not be mine...who gets to decide when its right to say (if ever) 'yep that other school was so bad you had to do it'

And yep why not VAT on university education if they are thinking of putting it on private schools...I doubt its not been thought of already

Anyone who is saying vat should be put on university fees doesn't seem to understand that univeristy is not free for all
If it was and they were state run and you decided to send your child to a better private university then yes you should pay vat
Thank god there aren't becuase those who are richer would automatically pay for a better university
Oh wait they do. Buy the fact that most children who go to them went to public schools

"Because your DD's sanitary towel does not have any potential for greater social good. It will never morph into a doctor, surgeon, teacher or any other tax payer."
So how about we levy tax on school fees over the amount the state pays per child in a state school? So VAT on the extras?

*by

And to be fair jojo my friends who send their children privately didnt do it because the state provision was so dire

They did it because they felt the private school was better...which i dont doubt it is

I find it hard to sympathise with people complaining about school fees rising.
If you can afford to pay school fees in the first place, you're doing far better than most.

That's my point - so people with parents who are higher earners don't qualify for help with living costs. Then to add on VAT to tuition fees seems to burden them again, as I know there are statistics that suggest a higher percentage people who go to university from lower income families will never pay off their tuition fees.

YANBU.

If you educate your child privately, you're already saving the government the £5000 per year it apparently costs them for state education per child. Then paying school fees on top of that. An extra 20% tax on that is a completely taking the p*ss.

Anyone who is saying vat should be put on university fees doesn't seem to understand that univeristy is not free for all but there is no obligation to go to university at all so it is a 'luxury' in itself isn't it? School is compulsory (unless you homeschool) so of course the state has to provide the means to carry that out. I'm not sure that the fact that there isn't a free alternative means that the comparison doesn't work.

I don't necessarily think there should be VAT on University fees, just thinking through the logical implications of taking education out of being VAT exempt and how far the arguments people are making go.

At the other end, would we also put VAT on nursery education/childcare?

oh and there are private universities Justbreathing - certainly the University of Buckingham is.

In what sense is the fact that vat is not charged on school fees a tax break? Surely it's only a tax break if you start from the premise that all purchases are chargeable unless exempt? I'm no tax lawyer but that's not the case, is it?

As I said, the devil is in the detail.

Pre-schools, schools and universities are all currently exempt and rely on the same exemption.

So fiddling with VAT, which would have to be agreed by all member states, could have unintended consequences.

But post-Brexit successor tax to VAT could have whatever definitions and rates we wanted.

When we choose to send our children to be educated privately it is purchasing a luxury. There seems to be a confusion about paying twice and only private schools being able to turn out doctors and teachers.
Plenty of state schools send children to Oxbridge and medicine. The notion that state schools aren't good enough isn't really much more than a Daily Mail myth to justify elitism. Plenty of private schools have nice uniforms but not very good teachers.
You should pay VAT because it is a luxury. University isn't. Students already pay and apart from Buckingham they are all in public ownership. If you can afford private fees then you can afford VAT that will boost funding for state schools and help redress injustice created by the affluent opting out.

Oh my. Oh dear. You may have to find a slightly cheaper school for them to go to.

Isn't life hard.......🙄

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer (must learn how to bold!)

I guess who gets to decide is us a parents (and ofsted reports)... It's one of the many choices we make without truly knowing if it is necessarily the best option but the one we feel is the right one for our child.

I have now moved but when son was little, the options were a failing school, an excellent religious school (we're atheists... Many people I knew bizarrely found their faith again when faced with this) or private... I don't think it is an isolated situation. It's not fair and comp schools need to be better but taxing private schools remains shocking in my opinion.

I was clearly joking about taxing further education!

Our current law defines education as a charitable purpose. Against that background it makes no sense to talk of it as a luxury. It is regarded as a valuable pursuit, rightly in my view, and we do not, as a free and liberal society, prescribe that it may only be provided by/obtained from the state, again rightly in my view. I do not wish to live in a country which says that education may only be provided by state providers. Nor, I think, would most people, however chippy about private schools they might be.
It's important to remember that private schools are not all about Eton. They are also about parents setting up ABA schools to pioneer the only method of education with proven results for kids with asd. Those kids will wait a long time for the state to do anything other then put them on the scrap heap.

i agree with grumpy, this wouldn't end private schools, it'd merely price out the marginal people. Those parents are then going to use the money saved on private schools to tutor their kids - one of the consequences I would see to this policy is a huge growth in the tutoring market in the areas where private schools shut because their clientele isn't quite wealthy enough.

Fairer? Not really, people with more money will simply find other ways to buy their way into nicer schools and home tutor their kids.

Would VAT be 20%? There are lower rates of VAT from memory.

Private school is a luxury. Let's not be funny about it. But I don't like the ideas of saying"tax private schools to fund X". It just puts one group of people against another.

I want all children to have a decent education. I don't think vat on private education makes sense but I do think they should revisit charitable status.

So was i jojo

Ds1 is off to uni this year

I think its a shit idea!!!!

"VAT is (generally) considered to be for luxuries."

That may be a widespread view, but it's just plain wrong.

But as we can't change VAT until we are out of EU (unless we actually want to risk a worse exit deal by putting everyone's back up about side issues), then it's all a bit theoretic, because what will be applied will new successor tax.

And there have been at least one party making a manifesto pledge to make the successor a luxury tax, and it seems that is a popular policy with many posters on this thread.